


The Low Road

by Ladybug_21



Series: A Strand of Fearn River Pearls [6]
Category: Code Name Verity Series - Elizabeth Wein
Genre: D-Day, Gen, Operation Neptune, Operation Overlord, Sword Beach, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 14:44:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18448727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: The last thing that Davie hears is the droning of bagpipes along the coasts of Normandy.





	The Low Road

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this fascinating article](https://www.tinker.af.mil/News/Features/Display/Article/388765/bagpiper-pipes-for-heritage-and-freedom/) sent to me by [april_rainer (tom_bedlam)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tom_bedlam). As the article implies, Bill Millin was a real and totally awesome historical figure, and a statue of him now stands at Sword Beach. The title of this story is taken from the lyrics of "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond." All rights to fictitious characters belong to Elizabeth Wein.

Davie was almost grateful for the roll of the waves under his feet; it meant that he could somewhat ignore how much his legs were trembling.

With each lift and drop of the Landing Craft Assault vehicle, the coast of Normandy drew closer and closer—a vast, godforsaken stretch of scrubby dunes, stretching out under a blue June sky already faded by the smoke of battle.   _Code Name Sword Beach_ , his Brigadier had told him earlier that day, before they began crossing the Channel and this all started to feel entirely too real. 

"You ready for this?" Bill muttered to Davie under his breath.

Davie nodded tersely.

It wasn't as if this were Davie's first time going into battle.  As a Commando, he had seen plenty of action in Norway and at Dieppe.  The rattle of gunfire and blast of explosions no longer made him flinch.  But storming a beach, exposed and running at covered Nazi lines, behind which crouched keen-eyed and steady-handed German snipers?  It felt like a suicide mission.

"Are  _you_  ready for this?" he mumbled to Bill.

"Ready as I ever am."

"Aren't you afraid?"  The question spilled out of Davie before he could check himself.  "Being such an easy target, and all."

The corner of Bill's mouth twitched upwards in a lopsided smile.

"Aye, as much as any other man here, I suppose.  Well, if the Jerries shoot me down, at least I'll leave this life in my kilt, with my _sgian-dubh_  tucked in my hose."

Davie glanced at the young man, so calmly confident in his fate.  Bill would turn twenty-two on Bastille Day next month, God willing.  He was almost exactly a month older than Julie, almost exactly the same age that Julie would have been, if—

"Landing momentarily," barked Lord Lovat from above them.  "Prepare to engage the enemy.  Private Millin?"

"Yes, sir," replied Bill, snapping to attention.

"On my orders, Private."

Davie reached out a hand and squeezed Bill's arm.

"Good luck out there," he whispered.

"Same to you, Lieutenant Colonel Beaufort-Stuart," Bill grinned.  " _In defens_."

On the Brigadier's order, the front ramp of the LCA swung downwards.  Davie grit his teeth and, alongside his fellow Commandos, he charged down the ramp, wading into the freezing Channel water below.  The air seared with artillery fire and the screams of wounded men and the splash of the waves and the reek of smoke.  Davie pushed forward through the water, his trousers quickly soaked through with saltwater and the saltier red that seeped from bodies floating limply in the tide.  Up ahead, carnage: a beach strewn with the dead and dying, mangled limbs crusted with bloody sand.

But behind Davie stirred the drone, then the blare, of Bill's bagpipes.  Against military regulations, surely—and yet, clear as the day, "Hielan' Laddie" rang out proud and clear from behind the 1st Special Service Brigade.  Davie took a deep breath.

"Forward!" he shouted to his fellow Commandos.

And together they forced their way through the water to the shore, the sound of the pipes driving them on.  Matt Cameron took a bullet through the throat and dropped into the water mid-stride.  "Hielan' Laddie" reached its conclusion, and Bill launched straight into "The Road to the Isles."  Shrapnel tore through Aidan Brodie's shoulder, and he retreated back to the LCA, sobbing through clenched teeth.

They had just reached the beach itself and were pushing up across the solid land towards the dunes when something punched Davie in the ribs, and he glanced down to see blood spurting from a hole in his left lung.  His mind went blank with shock, and his knees crumpled beneath him.

"Davie!" he thought he heard someone call from a long ways off.  But as he crashed down into the sand, his men continued their push forward.  They had a mission to fulfill.  He respected that.

Davie's vision began to blur, and he let his eyes close.   _Close your eyes and think of Scotland._   Bill was playing "Blue Bonnets Over the Border" now:

_Trumpets are sounding, war-steeds are bounding;_   
_Mount and make ready, and march in good order..._

Somewhere in his memory, Jamie and Julie were marching around the ruins of Aberfearn Castle, loudly and somewhat tunelessly singing this same song.  Julie's tiny frame engulfed, of course, in one of those moth-eaten old kilts that Mémère always tried to hide or discard, before her rambunctious granddaughter could ferret them out during a visit.  Did Julie remember such trivial details, as she lay dying?  They had never told him about her last moments, about what exactly had happened to his darling baby sister.  And now Davie would never know.

Bullets continued to whistle overhead; screams and oaths still echoed across the dunes.  The sand against Davie's cheek was coarse, and his uniform's front was sticking to him, increasingly saturated.  Curious, that his blood should feel so warm, when his body felt so increasingly cold.  But off in the distance, the bagpipes droned on, and other sounds seemed to fade and blur around the keenness of their tone.  Davie relaxed into the comfort of the music's familiarity.  With his eyes kept closed, he was back poking about the Standing Stanes near the Fearn with Sandy; listening to Julie orate a speech as William Wallace, while playing Battle of Stirling Bridge; hiking Munros with Granddad; watching Mother kick up her heels at a ceilidh; sitting with a lover at the top of Arthur's Seat, and staring down at Edinburgh spread below; laughing with his fellow Commandos after a hard day's worth of training at Achnacarry.  Could it be so terrible to die, when he had known such beauty?  Could it be so terrible to die, when his sacrifice would ensure that future generations could love the Scotland that he had loved?

The music grew fainter and fainter, and yet Davie smiled.  Within his final breath, he could have sworn he detected a whiff of heather on the sea breeze.

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: By the way, these songs are all excellent on the pipes, but the bodhrán part in the adaption of ["Blue Bonnets Over the Border"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN61UrW5qUo) by The Corries is FIRE. Highly recommended listening. (A post-writing read of Bill Millin's [rather extraordinary obituary](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/03/19/piper-bill-millin--obituary/) indicates that he actually didn't play this particular song until after the 1st Special Service Brigade was off the beaches, but, eh, artistic license.)


End file.
